tatzu nishi is a japanese installation artist best known for transforming historical monuments by surrounding a statue or building site with inhabitable domestic spaces. nishi's urban interventions include carefully constructed fabricated hotels and dwellings around historical monuments in europe, australia, singapore and america. the artist's temporary spaces are designed to transform the bystander’s interaction with common monuments or architectural details. the result is two-fold: on one hand, an 'instant sculpture' appears in a private space, and on the other, that same piece disappears from the public sphere. this dramatic shift from public to private creates an encounter with the sculpture that is both fascinating and uncanny. projects include a living room for the christopher columbus statue in new york and a hotel room for the monument of queen victoria in liverpool.

discovering columbus by tatzu nishi opens to the public in new york city

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japanese artist tatzu nishi — known for his temporary artspaces constructed to transform the bystander’s interaction with common monuments or architectural details — opens ‘discovering columbus’ to the public. a stone statue carved in the likeliness of christopher columbus by italian sculptor gaetano russo in 1892 in new york city has been reimagined by nishi with the help of the public art fund.

a perspective picturing the finished interior of nishi’s finished artspace image by tom powel (main image by go sugimoto / all images courtesy of the public art fund, NY)

nishi’s public artwork consists of a true-to-scale living room which has been built around the celebrated statue. russo’s christopher columbus now seems to be built atop a coffee table placed in the center of the space with three modern seating pieces facing the reinvigorated monument.

gaetano russo’s columbus sculpture image by tom powel

the stone monument, completed in 1892, has been closed into a living room-like structure image by tom powel

the wallpaper coating the interior of the temporary space depicts famous american figures image by tom powel

a visualization of the exterior of the ‘discovering columbus’ space image by tom powel

the stone-formed columbus peaks through his new living room window to the street-scape below image by tom powel

an additional view of the temporary platform encompassing the explorer’s monument image by tom powel

image by tatzu nishi

image by tom powel

panoramic view image by tom powel

image by tatzu nishi

russo’s sculpture before being built into his impermanent home image by jesse hamerman, courtesy public art fund, NY

a detailed perspective of the weathered statue image by nicholas baume, courtesy public art fund, NY

Nishi is a plagiarist! How can we accept this as someone else\’s work other than Gaetano Russo\’s. A noble public monument dedicated to teaching& reminding viewers of man\’s potential for greatness has been raped and paraded as a circus freak in the name of individualism and in the diseased guise of art. New York should be ashamed!

Fab to get close and see his insolent stance. He’s steering right over Central Park — yes folks the boat will run over the Maine monument which supplied the mistaken pretext, via a warship explosion, to start the Spanish-American war. So much history forgotten, packed in a strangely jumbled set of monuments that only really receive close inspection when an artist like Nishi brings us in close to see the pockmarks in the marble.

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